From early 2020, the four nations of the United Kingdom (England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland) enacted (at the time of writing) some 920 pieces of legislation in which the word “coronavirus” appears in the title. Nearly all of it is secondary legislation and much of it amends earlier versions to reflect changing conditions. There is scarcely any aspect of UK life that has not been subject to, or impacted by, coronavirus legislation that has been enforced, in large part, by coercive criminal sanctions albeit tempered by a significant degree of administrative, policing and prosecutorial discretion. This article discusses that legislation, its impact on the rule of law, on UK constitutional doctrines, on institutions, on the criminal courts, and (above all) on persons whose daily life was severely impacted by COVID-19 legislation.

The uncertainties experienced throughout the COVID-19 pandemic have posed major challenges both to the law itself and to its application. Prognostic uncertainties and gaps in knowledge about the new virus, on the one hand, and the need to act quickly, on the other, confronted the legislator and administrative courts with a challenge that could not be fully met by applying the hitherto existing Infection Protection Act. This contribution examines the legal responses to dealing with such uncertainties and illustrates them with examples of how the pandemic was handled in Germany. The focus is on aspects of legislation, followed by an analysis of the possibilities for judicial review of legislative decisions taken under uncertainty.

This article describes the heightened risk of corruption and other criminal phenomena that accompany the financial stimulus and economic recovery measures taken by governments in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. International organisations (United Nations, OECD) and European organisations (Council of Europe, European Union) have identified these risks ‒ including the possible involvement of organised crime ‒ and recommended taking timely and appropriate countermeasures ranging from prevention to prosecution. The European Union has established a new conditionality mechanism for funding post-COVID-19 recovery: if a Member State does not respect the rule of law, this could undermine the principle of sound financial management, which may ultimately lead to the denial of Union funds. These measures should ideally have a positive long-term effect on transparency and good governance.

The global COVID-19 pandemic has had a far-reaching impact on the administration of public matters worldwide and on cooperation among states in general. It has also seriously impacted judicial cooperation in criminal matters. In this note, we briefly outline the direct effect the pandemic has had on judicial cooperation in criminal matters as experienced in Eurojust's casework.

This article aims to critically examine the limitations to the fundamental right of personal data protection in Greece by exploring three instances in which the rules and practices have put the protection of personal data under significant pressure: (1) the processing of information on individuals who obtain movement permits via SMS; (2) the tracking of COVID-19 patients; and (3) the guidelines on the management of the COVID-19 crisis by the Hellenic Data Protection Authority (DPA). The article argues that the Greek response to COVID-19 has been fraught with over-restrictive measures that go beyond what is necessary and proportionate in a democratic society. In particular, the requirement of obtaining movement permits via SMS, which has been inserted through soft law, thus without parliamentary scrutiny, has relativized data protection and has lowered individuals’ resistance to future surveillance practices marking everyday movement as a matter of interest to the state. In relation to … Read more